MTAS in full motion

The NHS needs less of those who are so keen to talk, and more of those who are keen to do.

If you live by the sword, then you should have to die by the sword; unfortunately the makers of the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) do not seem to be aware of this rather pertinent saying.

For those of you that have been on another planet and have missed the MTAS debacle, here’s a quick run down: MTAS, or the medical training application system, is the creation of a few rather mentally challenged individuals who came up with the idea of MMC (modernizing medical careers). The big idea behind it was to centralize all job applications for junior doctors onto a big computer, so that all juniors would apply using the same application forms and at the same time. The precise reasons for destroying a perfectly decent system have not been revealed as yet, it has been hard so far to extract any hard information from those in control due to an incessant flow of shiny websites and propaganda material.

So gone is the old system that used a strange tool known as the curriculum vitae, and in is the new system that is made up of a rather large amount of ‘competency’ based questions. My heart skips a beat when I hear the word ‘competency’, usually because it heralds a large avalanche of subsequent bullshit when used by someone from the medical establishment. What do competency based questions consist of, aside from utter bullshit? Not much is the answer, and indeed the answers to these questions coincidentally typically consist of rather high grade bullshit too.

Why on earth is a reliable and solid selection tool being replaced with something that resembles a steaming pile of faeces? I have my suspicions. The scientific evidence certainly gives MTAS absolutely fuck all to fall back on. There is a precise sum total of zero evidence that demonstrates ‘competency’ based questions in application forms to be of any use in selecting between medical candidates. There was one Australian study done where they found that adding a bit of competency based waffle onto your CV was beneficial to the candidate’s chances of achieving selection, but that is the sum total of the evidence behind the MTAS application form. I am merely focusing on MTAS’ most glaring fault, which is its complete lack of ability to effectively differentiate between candidates; however I will have to leave the other billions of MTAS problems for another very long rainy day.

Thanks to the MTAS application form, we now have a rather large number of brilliant doctors left with no interviews at all. Many of these docs would have walked into interviews in the old system because they had worked hard, won prizes, passed extra exams, done extra courses and had generally demonstrated a bit more motivation than the other candidates. Thanks to the MTAS application form, these achievements count for virtually nothing compared to the inane drivel that gets inserted in the competency slots. That’s not the end of the lunacy either, short listers cannot see where candidates went to university and they cannot see where they have worked. Welcome to the brave new world of NHS job applications where all useful information is withheld or discounted, while what counts is your ability to bullshit, lie and even cheat.

MTAS really is going to do wonders for our health system, who thought of this wonderful idea of forcing some of the best young trainees abroad while replacing them with eloquent manure merchants? The same people that came up with MMC and competency based learning, that’s who. These cads have one hell of a lot to answer for, and it’s about time they were forced out into the open to face the music.

I’d hedge my bets that there are a fair few medical educationalists and educational psychologists involved in this piss poor pantomime. These kind of people are rather fond of wasting thousands of pounds researching how best to arrange tables and then working out how best to bore their victims to tears with nonsensical pretentious psychobabble. There are also some rather powerful people involved, who skillfully manipulate the scientific process to spread their deadly disease.

The NHS needs less of those who are so keen to talk, and more of those who are keen to do. There are encouraging signs that the medical masses have had enough of this meddling, and that they will not take any more. The people who have brought about these catastrophes will only listen if they are forced to listen, so this is what will have to be done. MTAS needs to be rammed vigorously down its creators' gobs, and it must be lodged so firmly that there is simply no chance of any regurgitation.